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Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

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Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#211

Post by skunkworks »

tokenadult wrote: post #70

The interviewed expert has very good credentials and clinical experience to be talking about what he is talking about, and his warnings should be taken seriously. But even at that, the fallacious teleological language he uses about biological evolution by natural selection suggests a way out of this problem. When he says, "Bacteria, like any living organism, want to survive," and "So anything that we do to try and ki…

I share your distaste of when evolution is personified or otherwise represented to be anything other than a powerful but passive process.

That being said, I have no problem with the statement that bacteria want to survive. They most certainly have mechanisms that are engaged actively in order to increase chances of survival. Horizontal gene transfer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer) allows bacteria to evolve in means other than traditional reproduction.

To add to my pedantic argument, it's not a conscious desire of theirs, but I'd argue that the basic things that humans do to survive (eat, drink, sleep, and have sex) are not conscious desires either. I'd argue that sexual reproduction is a mechanism that directly represents the biological success of greater genetic diversity and sharing of genes between organisms. We desire sex, and we desire sex with the best genetic candidates, and it's all a biological process encoded into our DNA that represents our desire for survival, so in that sense, bacteria desire survival as well.

And what does desire even mean? Does desire require consciousness and the ability to choose? It's a horribly imprecise term if you stare too long at it, so what I'm saying is that I don't think it's useful to pick on the doctor for his choice of words in this case.

Anyway, you have great points otherwise, but that first paragraph is not a point worth tripping over.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#212

Post by dekhn »

jmsduran wrote: post #126
vivin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit pedantic to argue about his usage of "desire". Evolution is a blind watchmaker. The bacteria are reacting to selective pressures. Large populations of bacteria around the world are getting exposed to different kinds of antibiotics. It's not a matter of "if" they will acquire resistance, but "when", and we're seeing this happening right now. The fact that lines of bacteria go extinct does nothing to…

I have never heard of bacteriophages before. Doing some light research, I found their protein/body structures to look almost machine-like. Very fascinating stuff. From Wikipedia's Bacteriophage page: "Medical trials were carried out, but a basic lack of understanding of phages made these invalid". I seriously hope alternatives like bacteriophages are being revisited and reconsidered within the medical community, as i…

Phage were critically important in the early development of molecular biology.

There was a whole club that met regularly around phages. Much of it was popularized by Delbruck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_group

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#213

Post by bradleyjg »

sliverstorm wrote: post #205
bradleyjg wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bill introduced in the Senate that would restrict antibiotics that are approved in humans from being used in agricultural in a prophylactic way.[1] A similar bill has been introduced in the House[2] by Rep. Louise Slaughter who has degrees in microbiology and public health. Given the pernicious and undemocratic over-representation of rural interests embodied in the structure of the Senate, I don't expect th…

Given the pernicious and undemocratic over-representation of rural interests embodied in the structure of the Senate, I don't expect them to go anywhere. I'm sure the rural interests have the same thing to say about urban interests & the House. Which, really, means things are working as intended.

As intended is rather irrelevant to the question of whether or not it's a good system. Unless you think that the so-called founding fathers were infallible?

A system which gives representation to rocks and cows rather than to people is undemocratic. That's not just my opinion man, it's a statement of fact. The House doesn't over-represent urban interests it represents them in the proportion that people of the country live there.

Your post smacks of the fallacy of the golden mean fallacy, which is unfortunately a serious problem in the United States today. There aren't two sides to every issue. Often some people are just wrong.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#214

Post by wglb »

darkarmani wrote: post #50

Meanwhile tons of antibiotics are used in factory farming. I'm not sure why it has ever been legal to use massive amounts of antibiotics on animals that aren't sick yet.

Feeding corn to cows, who are natural grass eaters, keeps them in a perpetual state of sickness, some say.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#215

Post by sliverstorm »

darkarmani wrote: post #50

Meanwhile tons of antibiotics are used in factory farming. I'm not sure why it has ever been legal to use massive amounts of antibiotics on animals that aren't sick yet.

A thought occurs to me- do we know it to be true, that a constant life-long supply of antibiotics results in the development of greater numbers of resistant strains of bacteria?

Think about it. We always say humans who don't finish their prescription are allowing some of the most resistant strains to survive, when taking the full prescription would generally finish off everything (even the moderately resistant strains) preventing selection. Farm animals that never stop taking antibiotics never provide that window of opportunity for unresistant strains to take hold and then undergo selection due to antibiotic regimes that are ended too soon.

Maybe I've got the wrong idea here, but is this particularly different from, say, a petri dish full of sulfuric acid, and a petri dish that periodically has some acid introduced for a short period of time? Drop a culture in the first dish, and they all die. Drop a culture in the second dish, and they have time to develop resistance.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#216

Post by ssmoot »

selectodude wrote: post #185
ssmoot wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's still a superiority insult. I think I've been prescribed antibiotics for an obviously viral infection one time in my adult life. I can count the number of times (in my late 30s) that I've been prescribed antibiotics as an adult on one hand. When you factor in that people just don't go to Dr's all that often in the US, especially the poor, I'd need to see some actual data before I believe this is a grossly…

http://www2.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&SearchTerm... 30 pills - $5.90. So a normal cycle would be about 3 dollars. In the United States. Antibiotics are so inexpensive.

Amoxicillin hasn't been prescribed by our Dr after it failed to do anything for the first ear infection. The Pharmacy isn't just going to substitute different antibiotics for you either.

Here's what my daughter was prescribed: http://www2.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&SearchTerm...

So $230 for the course. So sure. Amoxicillin is cheap. So is Tylenol. What's your point? After the Dr's visit you're still likely out at least $100, not to mention time off work, and that's if the "cheap stuff" even works. You can't get this stuff OTC.

I stand by my statement: Without data I think it's a lot easier to believe that places with socialized medicine and generous labor laws for things like sick time are much more likely to see abuse.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#217

Post by refurb »

j_baker wrote: post #116
hooande wrote: post #96

One thing I learned from watching this episode of Frontline was that we aren't doing a lot of research into new antibiotics. Companies like Pfizer (the original makers of penicillin) would rather create drugs like Lipitor or Prozac, things that customers will take everyday for the rest of their lives. Antibiotics are intended to be used as sparingly as possible, which doesn't leave room for a lot of profit. Even the…

It makes me think that the government will have to take some of the responsibility from the drug companies. If capitalism isn't working (which frequently happens in medical fields), we need another mechanism to make new antibiotics available.

It's not capitalism that's the problem, it's the current regulations surrounding drug research. The FDA has set out hurdles for drug approval that make it very unattractive to discover new antibiotics. They are currently changing the way these drugs are reviewed to try and alleviate that (new endpoints, etc).

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#218

Post by meepmorp »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #160
ctdonath wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the threat thereof that persuades compliance. If you try hard enough to do & keep doing something illegal, there is no limit which the state is unwilling to go to in coercing compliance.

Nobody's gonna beat a vet with a rubber hose because they gave a cow antibiotics.

It's your basic (American, right-) libertarian argument against the state doing anything that limits business. I think its application in a case like this nicely encapsulates the flaws in the philosophy, or at least the ability of its adherents to apply it sensibly.

Edit for clarity.

Re: Dr. Arjun Srinivasan: We’ve Reached “The End of Antibiotics, Period”

#220

Post by ideonexus »

tokenadult wrote: post #70

The interviewed expert has very good credentials and clinical experience to be talking about what he is talking about, and his warnings should be taken seriously. But even at that, the fallacious teleological language he uses about biological evolution by natural selection suggests a way out of this problem. When he says, "Bacteria, like any living organism, want to survive," and "So anything that we do to try and ki…

Richard Dawkin's book "The Selfish Gene" uses the same language, but, to his credit, he pauses regularly to remind the reader that genes are not really "selfish" and that they don't have "wants" and "desires," but that he is using that language to make it easier to understand the concepts. I understand your complaint, but it's a necessary communication technique when dealing with the general public.
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